Pour la classique Nike Air Max 90, le studio anglais ManvsMachine a réalisé cette vidéo où la basket gravite et danse devant nos yeux. C’est la naissance d’une Nike à laquelle on assiste, avec l’assemblage des lacets, du talon, de la fusion des couleurs, des matières et des formes : ronds, cubes ou encore triangles.
Our February issue is an illustration special including our pick of this year’s Pick Me Up artists (the work of one of whom, Carine Brancowitz, features on our cover), BBH’s Mark Reddy on illustration in advertising plus what an agent can do for you. And: designing sounds for cars, the future of news and what we can all learn from the marvellous Mr Paul Smith
The February issue of Creative Review is available to buy direct from us here. Better yet, subscribe to make sure that you never miss out on a copy – you’ll save money, too. Details here.
February’s focus on illustration kicks off with a discussion with four leading illustrators’ agents on the state of the industry, how illustrators can develop their career and what agents look for in new talent
Then we profile four up-and-coming illustrators from those selected to exhibit at this year’s Pick Me Up graphic art fair
And BBH head of art Mark Reddy reveals why illustration can sometimes be a hard sell to advertising clients and the advantages it can bring when done well
Too busy to keep up with everything online? Our new Month in Review section brings together all the main creative talking points and our pick of work from the previous four weeks along with your favourite columnists
Plus, amazing ‘pareidolic’ (look it up!) imagery from Graham Fink’s show at the Riflemaker gallery
Five things our columnist Gordon Comstock learned from his former employer Paul Smith, a master of branding
What should an electric car sound like and what effect will that have on our cities? We report on the efforts of a group of designers to re-engineer the sounds of our streets
France is to have its first ever festival of graphic design – will it help improve the standing of the industry?
US adman Gerry Graf (creator of the genius Skittles campaign) shares his tips on creative success
How much do we need to know about designers’ personal lives? Rick Poynor argues that an exhaustve new study of the ‘multi-active’ Dutch master Jurriaan Schrofer takes the design monograph to a whole new level of biographical detail
While Andy Cowles reviews Francesco Franchi’s timely examination of the future of editorial design, Designing News
And our Monograph this month documents the extraordinary graffiti-covered Magasins Généraux building in Paris, soon to become the new home of ad agency BETC
The February issue of Creative Review is available to buy direct from us here. Better yet, subscribe to make sure that you never miss out on a copy – you’ll save money, too. Details here.
Love animated Gifs? Then you’ll love the .GIFYS, a new awards show that aims to determine the all-time best Gifs ever. Yes, ever.
The brainchild of ad agency CP+B LA, the .GIFYS brings together Gifs from all over the internet and places them into various categories – including WTF?, Can’t Look Away, and, of course, Cats – which the public can vote on.
The shortlists were chosen by a panel of ‘internet experts’, including contributors to Buzzfeed, Gawker, Tumblr, Mashable and more. All the nominees can be viewed at thegifys.com. Below are some stills of some of the categories, but obviously you’ll need to visit the site to see the gifs in all their animated glory.
As you might imagine, many of Gifs featured are very funny indeed. But it’s not all about giggles, people. According to the founders, the .GIFYs aim to “immortalise the best Gifs, a medium that otherwise is generally viewed only once before it’s lost in the abyss that is the internet…. Gifs that receive a .GIFY will become permanent fixtures in an internet hall of fame, to be celebrated forever.” So head over to thegifys.com and get voting, and become part of this important mission.
Focus sur le studio Skill Lab qui nous souhaite la bonne année avec une excellente vidéo qui rassemble toutes les marques dont on se souviendra en 2014. Des transitions originales et fluides entre les 23 logos recensés, le tout saupoudré d’un remix bien vivant du français 20Syl – « Devil’s Tune ». A découvrir dans la suite.
In today’s print edition of The Guardian, the regular ‘Eyewitness’ centre spread is given over to nine images from Guinness’ latest advertising campaign, Made of More…
Designed in the Eyewitness format, the ‘advertisement feature’ includes a mixture of stills from the brand’s recent TV campaign featuring the well-dressed ‘Sapeurs’ of Congo-Brazzaville’s Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes, and portraits of the group’s members by Héctor Mediavilla. (CR’s Eliza wrote about the TV ad from AMV BBDO here.)
On The Guardian’s website, however, today’s Eyewitness image is listed as a photograph by Ian Langsdon of the culmination of Karl Largerfeld’s Chanel show at Paris fashion week (images from which feature on the front page and further inside).
So it’s unclear whether the Guinness feature – which runs over pages 22-23 with the brand’s logo shown top-right – only appears in the London edition, or is used more widely.
The link-up is the latest initiative from Guardian Labs, through which it produces “sponsored content” (it has editorial guidelines relating to this online) and has resulted in the collaboration at theguardian.com/guinness-made-of-more.
From there visitors can watch Mediavilla’s short film about the Sapeurs, access the Eyewitness spread and also read an accompanying feature on the group, A stylish philosophy. Writing in The Guardian earlier this month, Mark Sweeney also covered the campaign in the paper’s Media pages.
While photographs of the subjects of Guinness’ new campaign undeniably make for interesting images, the Eyewitness spread is usually the preserve of the best news photography captured on a particular day.
Whether other brands can slot so neatly into this section in partnership with the newspaper – without alienating fans of photojournalism and reportage – remains to be seen.
Editor: Anna Goldie. Produced for Guardian Labs by Guardian Creative to a brief agreed with Guinness. Paid for by Guinness. All editorial controlled by the Guardian, except those articles labelled as advertisement feature.
Afin de mettre en avant le fait que les prochains Jeux Olympiques d’Hiver de Sochi (7 au 23 février) seront diffusés sur ses canaux, BBC Sport a demandé a Tomasz Bagiński de réaliser une vidéo d’animation. Cette vidéo montre avec fantaisie et talent les différentes disciplines et les épreuves à affronter pour triompher.
The Gallery of Russian Art and Design’s latest exhibition includes rarely seen posters promoting silent films from the 1920s. Open until March, it offers a fascinating look at early film advertising and the use of cinematic techniques in print communications.
Kino/Film: Soviet Posters of the Silent Screen was curated by GRAD director Elena Sudakova and art historian Lutz Becker. While the 30 posters on show were mass produced, few copies of them exist today and several have never been exhibited in the UK until now.
The Russian Government invested heavily in silent film in the 1920s – a state controlled organisation, Sovkino, was appointed to oversee the distribution of foreign films and revenue generated from ticket sales was used to fund domestic propaganda productions such as Sergei Eisentein’s October and Vsevolod Pudovkin’s The End of St Petersburg, which celebrate the October Revolution of 1917.
Posters promoting domestic and foreign titles were produced by a subsidiary department, Reklam Films, led by designer Yakov Ruklevsky, who appointed a number of young creatives including Georgii and Vladimir Stenberg, Izrail Bograd, Grigorii Borisov, Nikolai Prusakov, Mikhail Dlugach, Aleksandr Naumov and Semen Semenov Menes. Some went on to design adverts for consumer goods while others specialised in set design and political posters, but all used the same vivid colours, experimental typography and avante garde techniques.
As the films were produced in black and white, designers were free to experiment with vivid blocks of colour, such as in the Stenberg’s print promoting 1926 film The Three Million Case (above). Propaganda art of the time was mostly limited to one or two colours but Reklam’s film posters used three.
Many of the works shown in the exhibition also feature large floating heads, acting in the same way as close-up stills in film posters today. As Alexandra Chiriac explains in an accompanying book, stills could not be directly transferred onto posters, so artists drew scenes and characters by hand from projections. Their layouts were later transferred by craftsmen onto stone or zinc plates using litho crayon or ink.
As well as employing vivid colours and close-ups, Reklam’s designers used a range of cinematic techniques that were pioneered in the films they promoted – such as repetition, asymmetric viewpoints and dramatic foreshortenings. These distorted proportions were often created by toying with the angle or size of projections, creating dramatic and often eerie or unsettling artwork.
These techniques were employed with the sole intention of startling passers by – according to Chiriac, the Stenbergs once declared: “We produce a poster that is noticeable…designed to shock, to hold attention…To reach this aim, we treat the source material with total freedom, which is also spurred on by the size of the poster. We do not preserve proportionality between several objects and are turning figures upside down – in short, we employ everything that could stop even a hurrying passer by in his tracks”.
While the works on display are rarely seen today, they were exhibited in Russia in 1925 and 1926, and samples were filed at the Lenin Library at the insistence of art critic and politician Lunacharski. The GRAD show is a rare chance to see these iconic works up close in the size and format their designers intended.
Posters also featured in Sudakov and Becker’s book (priced at £25) and GRAD is hosting a series of accompanying events including film screenings and a panel discussion on January 22. See grad-london.com for details.
Kino/Film: Soviet Posters of the Silent Screen is open at the Grad Gallery, 3-4a Little Portland Street, London W1W 7JB until March 29 2014.
Can a deodorant spray bring about world peace? Even for just one day? The new spot for Axe from BBH London marries some lofty ambitions with a fresh demonstration of the power of the ‘Lynx Effect’
The commercial (titled Call to Arms) promotes a new version of Axe (known as Lynx in the UK), Axe Peace. In a number of vignettes, potential conflict is averted by the power of a modestly-priced deodorant spray to bring hot men and women together. Hooray!
But wait… at the end of the decidedly tongue-in-cheek spot, a logo for Peace One Day comes up (the organisation which campaigns to establish an international Peace Day once a year), while a voiceover intones ‘Make love, not war. Axe Peace.’
CR readers may be familiar with Peace One Day via its relationship with D&AD – Peace One Day was the organisation which entrants to the inaugural D&AD White Pencil were asked to help promote. Unilever (owner of the Axe brand) also has a relationship with the organisation. It is a founder member of the Peace One Day Corporate Coalition, a group of companies supporting the organisation and its aim to establish September 21 as a day on which “a child will not be bullied, a woman will not be hit, a gun will not be fired”.
The Axe ad, then, is what this kind of CSR-related activity looks like in practice. When brands talk about harnessing their power ‘for good’, this is how it plays out. Along with the commercial, there is a print campaign (below) and there will be various unspecified complementary local activities, we are promised.
So the ad has two functions – to raise awareness about Peace One Day and to sell more Axe body spray. How much it is weighted in the cause of one or the other perhaps depends on your level of cynicism.
Can an ad for a deodorant spray bring about world peace? No, of course not, not directly anyhow. Can it raise awareness of an organisation that is trying, among other things, to create breathing space in conflict zones during which progress toward conflict resolution may happen or help may be given to those caught up in conflict? Certainly. And that’s important. Peace One Day founder Jeremy Gilley makes the argument rather well in the Axe PR bumf when he says “awareness of peace is everything. Awareness inspires action, and action creates change”.
Charities and not-for-profts have to compete for attention and resources just like everything else. Certain causes become fashionable and get themselves onto the agenda of those in power. Activities like this help in that process. If you take the ad at face value its ambition seems faintly ludicrous, but when seen as part of a wider push to establish a worthwhile project, enlist young people and lift Peace One Day up the decision-making agenda, it has real value.
But what about Axe?
The Lynx (Axe) Effect was a powerful, memorable line which positioned the brand perfectly in the eyes of its adolescent male audience. Recent campaigns have moved away from its cheeky, successful positioning. Of late the ads have felt rather oblique and self-referential, or in the case of last year’s Apollo ad, downright bizarre.
In Call to Arms, the love aspect of the spot suggests a development of the brand’s unfeasibly powerful effect on womenkind but the charm and out-and-out comedy of previous ads is missing. It also plays very safe in its targets – Vietnam, a Gadaffi-style dictator, the Prague spring? Contrast this with what Benetton has done when advocating peace.
Perhaps the problem here is the CSR element. Lynx/Axe’s great strength was that it didn’t take itself too seriously but Peace One Day is a very serious enterprise. The press release describes Call to Arms as an “epic campaign which aims to bring young people across the world together to make love, not war”. BBH’s goal, we are told, was to get Axe users “to start thinking of peace as cool. By shifting their perceptions, hopefully it will lead to a behavioural shift too. More love, less conflict.”
It’s an awful long way from the brand’s initial promise of ‘spray this on and you’ll pull’. Too far, perhaps?
Credits:
Agency: BBH
Deputy ECD: David Kolbusz
Creatives: Daniel Schaefer, Szymon Rose, Jack Smedley, George Hackforth-Jones
Product design: Rosie Arnold
Director: Rupert Sanders
Production company: MJZ
Print photographer: Jean-Yves Lemoigne
Retour sur la maison de thé Kusmi Tea et sa nouvelle campagne vidéo par l’agence « Quai des Orfèvres ». Près de 3 courts métrages pour la promotion des mélanges Prince Wladmir, Sweet Love et BB Detox. Une campagne signée par le réalisateur Jeremy Charbit comportant des chorégraphies aquatiques.
Apple and Sony have both released major commercials this week. The two films have many similarities: they are both ultimately centred on product, yet also come with a hefty side order of idealism. So who wins in this battle of the tech behemoths?
Let’s start with the Apple ad. The spot centres on the iPad Air, and shows the tablet in use in a number of spectacular scenerios. Apple has proved the master of the product demo over the last few years, transforming this rather fusty medium to show off a series of remarkable new devices. Previously, the piece of tech at the centre of the ads was enough to get us excited, but we know how an iPad works now, so consequently this spot dials up the drama considerably.
The ad does make the iPad seem awfully impressive – apparently as useful in a rescue helicopter or in the eye of a storm as it is to send an ordinary email. And if this wasn’t enough, Robin Williams pops up in the voiceover, intoning a version of his stirring speech from Dead Poets Society. Williams’ voice is more gravelly than in the movie, and the setting of the speech in an ad seems more overtly manipulative of our emotions, but it’s still affecting. It’s a powerful contender.
Now over to Sony. As with Apple, Sony is keen to show us its wares. Instead of focusing on just one product though, this ad gives us many. We whip from older products, such as the much-loved Walkman (which of course has now been eclipsed by Apple’s iPod, but let’s not dwell on that here) onto computers, cameras, TVs, underwater headphones, and much more. Again like Apple, the scenerios shown here are privileged: we visit Spike Lee on set, for example, using his Sony camera to shoot a movie. What unites all these products, we are told, is Sony’s unique combination of engineering and artistry.
The Sony spot is accompanied with a series of shorter films that focus on recent product releases. You can see one on the underwater walkman here, and another on the personal 3D movie viewer here. Put it all together, and it’s impossible not to come away with a sense of how broad Sony’s reach is.
Yet, there is a certain functionality to the Sony piece, and it is here where the two spots diverge. By bringing all of the products together in a ‘hey, what a great company this is’ kind of way, Sony runs the risk of making us feel like we’re at an internal company sales conference. (Perhaps the ad is aimed as much at employees and ‘stakeholders’ as it is at consumers.) Apple doesn’t attempt to tell us about all the things it does – the iPad Air alone is enough. And while Sony demands that we ‘Be Moved’, Apple relies on the power of its brand and the brilliance of its products to do that implicitly. Surely, if you feel the need to tell people how they should feel at the end of your ad, something has gone wrong?
The spot may be too in keeping with Apple’s established style to bring any non-believers into the fold, and the poetry speech and its delivery may make many squirm, but in this ad battle with Sony, it comes out top.
Sony credits:
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy Portland
Creative directors: Mike Giepert, Chris Mitton
Creatives: Mike Giepert, Chris Mitton, Matt Moore
Director: Stacy Wall
Production company: Imperial Woodpecker
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